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Kickboxing “We’re opening up the kickboxing class to everyone,” Dax said one day after jiu jitsu class. This was about 6 months after I’d started jiu jitsu. Jiu Jitsu is great to learn because fights can end up on the floor, but what do you do before that? You certainly can’t start from on the floor! I was happy that kickboxing became an option, but I was also really unsure about trying it. I’d be walking in blind, and I might be the only woman. But I joined to

Sparring I didn’t know anything at all about sparring when it came to jiu jitsu at the beginning. What are you supposed to do if you can’t punch anybody? I didn’t know anything about guard, mount, getting out of mount, or what any of my objectives were. Thankfully, some of the higher belts were pretty nice in explaining how it works in jiu jitsu to me. This one brown belt, Cora, went over what mount and guard is with me during sparring. Basically, mount is a power

The Workout At three months in, I realized that getting decent at this sport could take a lot of time. This is when I thought it could be a year before I felt like I could win a fight that ended up on the ground. In the meantime, I could focus on getting my endurance up. I noticed that I had a difficult time keeping up with the running before instruction started, even though I worked out on my own. After an intense 7-minute workout at the dojo, I was panting and no

Month 1 of Jiu Jitsu TV, movies, superheroes—they make us wish we knew how to defend ourselves. The only problem is putting in the time and effort required to practice. At age 29, I was looking for things to do instead of just going to work, coming home, and watching YouTube videos. As an average height, slim woman, I noticed that I felt vulnerable much of the time. What would I do if I needed to defend myself, especially against a stronger assailant? I wanted to learn a ma